26 March 2012

Casa de mi Padre

A scene from ``Casa de mi Padre.''

Will Ferrel hasn’t really been hitting them out of the park lately. I haven’t seen everything of course but those that I have weren’t anywhere near the genius of Anchorman or… it appears that’s the only really good movie of his I’ve seen. Oh well. Anyway, Casa de mi Padre isn’t going to dig him out of the hole he may or may not be in, but it’s definitely a serviceable exercise in oddity.

It’s a Spanish-language movie mocking cheap telenovelas. That’s pretty much it, except there’s a bit more absurdism and borderline surrealism than I think might show up in such things. Laughs go on far too long, characters are often replaced mid-scene with mannequins, ridiculously fake-looking animal puppets give spiritual pep-talks, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much smoking in a movie. In between these moments of hilarity is mostly straight if low-quality drama, almost exclusively in Spanish with the exception of a few lines from the good Nick Offerman of Parks and Rec fame. I kind of enjoyed being able to pick out some dialogue that wasn’t fully translated in the subtitles, although as far as I could tell it was never done for any sort of comedy.

It’s really a lot of fun to watch. I’m not sure what all the middling/low critical praise it’s getting is all about. I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets some kind of cult status eventually.

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